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David Novak, (born August 19, 1941) is an American Jewish theology, ethicist, and scholar of Jewish philosophy and law (Halakha). He is an ordained Conservative rabbi and holds the J. Richard and Dorothy Shiff Chair of Jewish Studies as Professor of the Study of Religion and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto since 1997. His areas of interest are Jewish theology, Jewish ethics and biomedical ethics, political theory (with a special emphasis on natural law), and Jewish–Christian relations.
Novak has authored 16 books and more than 200 articles in Academic journal. His book Covenantal Rights: A Study in Jewish Political Theory (Princeton University Press, 2000) won the American Academy of Religion Award for "best book in constructive religious thought" in 2000. He is a regular contributor to the ABC News' Religion and Ethics portal. He frequently addresses interfaith conferences and contributes to books and journals published by Christian theologians.
In 1992–1993 he was a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C. He also lectured at Oxford University, Lancaster University and Drew University, and was a visiting scholar at Princeton University in 2004 and 2006. In 2017, he delivered the Gifford Lectures on Athens and Jerusalem: God, Humans, and Nature at the University of Aberdeen.
Novak suggests that there are three degrees by which Christians can maintain respect for the covenant of the Jews mentioned in Jeremiah.David Novak, 'The Covenant in Rabbinic Thought', in Eugene B. Korn (ed.), Two Faiths, One Covenant?: Jewish and Christian Identity in the Presence of the Other, (Rowman & Littlefield, 2004), pp. 65–80.
He observes, "In the early Church, it seems, the new covenant presented by the Apostolic Writings (better known as diatheke ekaine or novum testamentum) was either taken to be an addition to the old covenant (the religion of the Torah and Jewish Pharisaic tradition), or it was taken to be a replacement for the old covenant."David Novak, 'The Covenant in Rabbinic Thought', in Eugene B. Korn (ed.), Two Faiths, One Covenant?: Jewish and Christian Identity in the Presence of the Other, (Rowman & Littlefield, 2004), pp. 66.
Novak considers both understandings to be supersessionist. He designates the first as "soft supersessionism" and the second as "hard supersessionism." The former "does not assert that God terminated the covenant of Exodus-Sinai with the Jewish people. Rather, it asserts that Jesus came to fulfill the promise of the old covenant, first for those Jews already initiated into the covenant, who then accepted his messiahhood as that covenant's fulfillment. And, it asserts that Jesus came to both initiate and fulfill the promise of the covenant for those Gentiles whose sole connection to the covenant is through him. Hence, in this kind of supersessionism, those Jews who do not accept Jesus' messiahhood are still part of the covenant in the sense of 'what God has put together let no man put asunder' emphasis." See also Dual-covenant theology.
Hard supersessionism, on the other hand, asserts that "the old covenant is dead. The Jews by their sins, most prominently their sin of rejecting Jesus as the Messiah, have forfeited any covenantal status." The hard supersessionists base their views on the bible passages found in and . This classification provides mutually exclusive options. Hard supersessionism implies both punitive and economic supersessionism; soft supersessionism does not fall into any of the three classes recognized as supersessionist by Christian theologians; instead it is associated with Jewish Christianity.Novak. "The Covenant in Rabbinic Thought." "Two Faiths, One Covenant?: Jewish and Christian Identity in the Presence of ...." Ed. Eugene B. Korn and John Pawlikowski. Google Books. 27 June 2014.
In the mid-1980s he was invited to join the Institute on Religion and Public Life by its founder, Richard John Neuhaus, and became a member of the editorial board of the institute's journal, First Things. He is also a member of the advisory board of The G.K. Chesterton Institute for Faith & Culture at Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey.
In 2006 he was appointed as a board member of Assisted Human Reproduction Canada.
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